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Most visitors to Salzburg come with both Mozart and Maria on their minds. They tour the modest rooms of the great composer’s birthplace; the Ratszimmer in the Residenz Palace where, aged six, he first performed before the court; and the spacious apartments where he lived with his parents in later years. And when they have done with Mozart, they hop up and down the steps in the Mirabelle gardens, the very ones where Maria (aka Julie Andrews) taught the von Trapp children to sing Do Re Me in the film of The Sound of Music. Then they make a pilgrimage to the Riding School auditorium from where the von Trapps made their escape after singing Edelwiess.

There is plenty more to see in this immaculate medieval town, squeezed between the banks of the Salzach river, and the great 11th-century castle which looms on the cliffs above. There’s the baroque cathedral, the excellent Residenz gallery of Old Masters, and just outside the city, extraordinary 18th-century “trick” fountains, still with their original water-driven mechanical figures, in the Hellbrunn Palace gardens. But even here there are musical memories: this is also home to the original pavilion where Liesl and Rolf sang “16 going on 17”.

Is there a slight risk of it all becoming a little, well, kitsch? Absolutely not. At least not if you come both for the musical memories, and for the real thing. Because what really keeps Salzburg’s traditions alive is not sentimental tourism, but the annual Salzburg Festival which, from late July until the end of August, hosts a panoply of the world’s greatest classical musicians and singers. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is in residence, and every year the three main concert halls - as well as several smaller venues - sell out for a series of nearly 200 performances of operas, orchestral works, and chamber concerts.

The Summer Riding School serves as another of Salzburg's distinctive performance venuesCredit:
Oskar Anrather

With the possible exception of the Proms, no other classical music festival has flourished so remarkably, nor endured so long. And none has quite the same aura - that special atmosphere generated by the audiences, often in black tie and evening gowns, which spill out into the Hofstallgasse and sip Aperol spritz in the (very smart) pop-up bar in Furtwanglerpark. It’s all very mittel-European, very civilised, very sophisticated. (And of course Austria excels in this respect; fans of the festival are also drawn to the country in winter for Vienna's magnificent ball season.)

That atmosphere and the extraordinarily high quality of the music is why I love coming here, and it is also why, last summer, I too arrived in Salzburg with Maria on my mind. But although, just like Julie Andrews, she arrived on her bicycle, and turned out to be just as charming, bubbly and personable, the Maria I was meeting was not the lead character stepping out of the Sound of Music, but out of West Side Story. For this was Cecilia Bartoli, the Salzburg Festival’s resident prima donna and one of the world’s greatest sopranos. And last summer she was singing the role of Maria in the festival’s first ever production of Leonard Berstein’s musical.

La Sylphide will be performed during the 2017 Salzburg Whitsun FestivalCredit:
Natalya Razina

In the city of Mozart and Richard Strauss the idea of billing a musical - no matter how sophisticated and well-thought of - was a controversial one. But if anyone could convince the festival goers of its musical validity it was going to be Bartoli, whose repertoire normally focuses on Handel, Mozart and Rossini. The darling of the festival, she was the driving force behind the production and a move to widen her repertoire. “I’ve always wanted to sing Maria,” she said, “I think it is a truly great work; one of the greatest of the 20th century.” She also saw it as a way of connecting with a new audience, which can be a challenge at a festival which attracts a fierce loyalty - some 80 per cent of festival goers have visited at least six times, and an extraordinary 47 per cent have been at least 20 times before.

Cecilia Bartoli, one of the Salzburg Festival's most ardent supporters

“When I’m on stage, I can sense that deep connection with the audience,” said Bartoli, “and the moment you come to Salzburg for the first time, you catch that bug. It’s so exciting what’s going on here that you want to keep coming back. And somehow this year I can feel the connection happening with a younger audience which is coming to see West Side Story - I can see new faces out there.”

That may be part of the future, but what is it, I asked, about Salzburg itself which makes its festivals so special? Bartoli cites the the holiday atmosphere in the town as central to its musical success. It’s that ability to work in a more informal, relaxed way which, she explains, is at the heart of it. The audiences obviously love the atmosphere, but so too do the performers. They can wind down and have time together in a way which they can’t usually do when passing through a big city for a concert in winter, for example. Summer time in the mountains, it seems, makes for better music and better performances.

A nightime performance at KapitalplatzCredit:
Andreas Kolarik

Originally from Rome, Bartoli’s own links with Salzburg go back 30 years when she did her first audition for Salzburg-born conductor Herbert von Karajan. “He choose me for Bach’s C minor mass. At that time he was already quite ill and fragile but he still had incredible charisma, his eyes were full of intensity,” she remembered, and it brings home to me quite how deep-rooted and inter-connected the Salzburg traditions are. After all, it was Bartoli who, in 2012 was to become director of the Whitsun festival, originally founded by von Karajan in 1967.

Lasting for just a few days in June, it’s much shorter than the summer event in July and August, but it’s a great opportunity for her to explore new themes and develop her operatic interests. Not surprisingly, she has favoured performances and productions with strong roles for women, but for 2017 - the 50th anniversary - she is taking things a step further, and playing the male title role in Handel’s Ariodante (it’s written for a counter tenor, of course, so it suits her singing register).

As I rose to leave, we both looked out of the her dressing room window towards the green mountainsides which, as we all know from The Sound of Music, surround the city. I wondered if she ever found time to escape there herself.

The cathedral provides a momentous backdrop for one festival performanceCredit:
Tourismus Salzburg

“Oh yes!” she beamed, “This is ideal for an opera singer - for your lungs, you can do walking and cycling. All this gives a great energy for the stage - it’s healthy, there’s no pollution and lots of good food!” And suddenly, those images of Julie Andrews running across Alpine meadows with arms outstretched, flooded back into my mind.

How to do the 2017 Salzburg Festival in style

Where to be seen The terrace bar of the Sacher Hotel overlooks the river and is perfect for evening or lunchtime drinks. Immediately before performances concert-goers gather at the Furtwanglerpark bar outside the Festspielhaus.

Where to eat Both Salzburg’s two-star Michelin restaurants are well outside the centre - Ikarus is a contemporary building near the airport terminal which often hosts guest chefs of international repute, while Senns - is in a former bell foundry on the northern fringes of the city. The best restaurant in the Old Town, and most convenient and convivial for concert goers is Carpe Diem, which serves top-quality regionally inspired dishes just around the corner from the Festspielhaus.